I dreamed the DOG. Artie sparkles, my kid, with me for almost 14 years... he is some approximate age of 14 years. I spoke aloud, “Artie has hives”. In dreaming he was covered with a linty scruffy short fuzz of fur, white bubbling into white. Different people told different tales, this dog has this this dog has that my dog your dog his dog and her dog, sometimes a cat. All of it was pretty scary to me!!! and what about little Artie? He seemed uninvolved, surely this was more about me than him, which is of course the truth. Or my truth, not his. What is his truth I will never know because I’m not a dog, even though my nose is often cold and wettish, even tho I wag my tail, especially when I butt walk up and down steps, even though I so LOVE LOVE LOVE dogs, still I am not a dog. There is some crossover in us thoug,h, interbred? The cement is almost dry so I can start rolling over it, with teeny beginnings of cracks, just enough to remember the preciousness and vulnerability that is afforded to me through it's existence, like bones that hold together yet can be slightly fractured and still turn and twist and hold us up. Cement bones. Underlays of paths. Traversed courses.......(new painting in the McCord poetry books)